smell could have been him, but he decided to let that go.
Even in silence, Janet could communicate exasperation, and CJ found himself swaying a bit as he awaited her response.
“Where are you, really?” she asked. “You haven’t been back to your apartment in days.”
“Are you staking the place out?”
“I called the police, CJ.”
That was unexpected. It served to sharpen his senses—a little.
“For what? Breaking into my own house?”
The door to Ronny’s opened to deposit someone who appeared to be in worse shape than CJ, and the music that poured out into the street washed away Janet’s words. CJ stuck a finger in his unoccupied ear and moved farther down the sidewalk.
“I didn’t hear that,” he said.
“I froze the bank account. The only money you have now is in your wallet.”
Janet released a heavy sigh through the phone. CJ could imagine her running her fingers through the hair that would have spilled down in front of her eye.
The thought elicited a pang from somewhere deep in his chest. But instead of telling her that he still loved her, which might have been true, he said, “My grandfather died.”
That brought a lingering silence from Janet’s side—enough so that CJ wondered if the connection had been lost. After a time, though, she said, “I’m sorry, CJ.”
“So am I,” he answered, intending the words to cover a good deal more than Sal’s death.
“So that means you’re in New York.”
“I have to go. Goodbye, Janet.”
After he ended the call, it seemed much colder outside than it had felt just a few minutes earlier, but he didn’t have any desire to go back inside Ronny’s, if for no other reason than he didn’t feel up to talking with his father anymore. His hotel was only five or six blocks away, which was good because he was in no shape to drive. Leaving the Honda where it was, he zipped up his jacket and started for the hotel.
It had, in fact, been twelve blocks to the hotel, and more than once CJ had wondered if he’d missed it. By the time he stumbled through the door, he’d been unprepared for his dog’s anxious greeting. He’d kept it together long enough to let the dog tend to its outdoor business, and afterward he filled his food and water bowls and collapsed onto the bed. Once, half awakening in the night, he found Thor stretched out next to him, which was something he would never have gotten away with back in Tennessee. Janet would have been horrified. CJ had drifted back to sleep wearing a smile.
The next morning it was still cold outside as CJ walked back into town to claim his car. He’d dressed warmly and fortified himself with a cup of very hot, very bitter coffee from the hotel lobby. Despite unfamiliar smells and sounds pulling Thoreau’s attention in twenty different directions, the dog stayed with him. Occasionally he would see something tempting, like a group of children on the other side of the street, and he would look up at CJ and whimper, but he’d been trained well and remained fixed to his master’s side.
Only an hour had passed since CJ awoke, not much time to consider his options, but he had the benefit of having several choices stripped away before any serious debate could begin. If he ignored his semi-promise to Matt to write the article, he could leave for Tennessee today and thereby step into a great deal of unpleasantness as soon as he crossed into Williamson County. Awaiting him was a lawsuit, a soon-to-be ex-wife who had decided to play hardball, and perhaps even a warrant for his arrest, provided Janet hadn’t been bluffing about calling the police. And he knew Janet well enough to know that she seldom bluffed.
This left CJ with a truncated list of choices, especially if Janet had indeed been able to cut off his access to his own money. He marveled at that, since he’d been the one to open all of the accounts. He needed to call his lawyer and find out exactly what he was doing with all the money CJ paid him. He had maybe forty dollars in his wallet. He shook his head. He was in an unenviable position, especially if things with Janet and the book critic dragged on.
Not to mention that Matt would lament CJ’s inability to promote The Buffalo Hunter. His travels were documented on both his publisher’s and his personal website, and extraditions were too routine for his liking. He